Field validations currently run very often, such as within form state on
type. This can lead to serious performance implications within the admin
panel if those validation functions are async, especially if they
perform expensive database queries. One glaring example of this is how
all relationship and upload fields perform a database lookup in order to
evaluate that the given value(s) satisfy the defined filter options. If
the field is polymorphic, this can happen multiple times over, one for
each collection. Similarly, custom validation functions might also
perform expensive tasks, something that Payload has no control over.
The fix here is two-fold. First, we now provide a new `event` arg to all
`validate` functions that allow you to opt-in to performing expensive
operations _only when documents are submitted_, and fallback to
significantly more performant validations as form state is generated.
This new pattern will be the new default for relationship and upload
fields, however, any custom validation functions will need to be
implemented in this way in order to take advantage of it. Here's what
that might look like:
```
[
// ...
{
name: 'text'
type: 'text',
validate: async (value, { event }) => {
if (event === 'onChange') {
// Do something highly performant here
return true
}
// Do something more expensive here
return true
}
}
]
```
The second part of this is to only run validations _after the form as
been submitted_, and then every change event thereafter. This work is
being done in #10580.
Explore the Docs · Community Help · Roadmap · View G2 Reviews
Important
🎉 We've released 3.0! Star this repo or keep an eye on it to follow along.
Payload is the first-ever Next.js native CMS that can install directly in your existing /app folder. It's the start of a new era for headless CMS.
Benefits over a regular CMS
- Deploy anywhere, including serverless on Vercel for free
- Combine your front+backend in the same
/appfolder if you want - Don't sign up for yet another SaaS - Payload is open source
- Query your database in React Server Components
- Both admin and backend are 100% extensible
- No vendor lock-in
- Never touch ancient WP code again
- Build faster, never hit a roadblock
Quickstart
Before beginning to work with Payload, make sure you have all of the required software.
pnpx create-payload-app@latest
If you're new to Payload, you should start with the website template (pnpx create-payload-app@latest -t website). It shows how to do everything - including custom Rich Text blocks, on-demand revalidation, live preview, and more. It comes with a frontend built with Tailwind all in one /app folder.
One-click templates
Jumpstart your next project by starting with a pre-made template. These are production-ready, end-to-end solutions designed to get you to market as fast as possible.
🌐 Website
Build any kind of website, blog, or portfolio from small to enterprise. Comes with a fully functional front-end built with RSCs and Tailwind.
We're constantly adding more templates to our Templates Directory. If you maintain your own template, consider adding the payload-template topic to your GitHub repository for others to find.
✨ Features
- Completely free and open-source
- Next.js native, built to run inside your
/appfolder - Use server components to extend Payload UI
- Query your database directly in server components, no need for REST / GraphQL
- Fully TypeScript with automatic types for your data
- Auth out of the box
- Versions and drafts
- Localization
- Block-based layout builder
- Customizable React admin
- Lexical rich text editor
- Conditional field logic
- Extremely granular Access Control
- Document and field-level hooks for every action Payload provides
- Intensely fast API
- Highly secure thanks to HTTP-only cookies, CSRF protection, and more
🗒️ Documentation
Check out the Payload website to find in-depth documentation for everything that Payload offers.
Migrating from v2 to v3? Check out the 3.0 Migration Guide on how to do it.
🙋 Contributing
If you want to add contributions to this repository, please follow the instructions in contributing.md.
📚 Examples
The Examples Directory is a great resource for learning how to setup Payload in a variety of different ways, but you can also find great examples in our blog and throughout our social media.
If you'd like to run the examples, you can use create-payload-app to create a project from one:
npx create-payload-app --example example_name
You can see more examples at:
🔌 Plugins
Payload is highly extensible and allows you to install or distribute plugins that add or remove functionality. There are both officially-supported and community-supported plugins available. If you maintain your own plugin, consider adding the payload-plugin topic to your GitHub repository for others to find.
🚨 Need help?
There are lots of good conversations and resources in our Github Discussions board and our Discord Server. If you're struggling with something, chances are, someone's already solved what you're up against. 👇

